LeftLion • 29 November 2025

How local goth-punks Bloodworm built their profile with live shows

Though it would have been easy to stick to regular Nottingham gigs when they were starting out, Bloodworm were eager to push themselves further afield. "We started playing out of town very quickly, in places like Manchester," Chris reflects. "In our first four years, our focus has been gigging rather than releasing music." George adds, "We haven't done much TikTok or influencer stuff like a lot of bands have. We've done it just through playing gigs, which is the harder way of doing it, but it's...

DIY • 25 November 2025

She’s In Parties: “If you write thinking ‘this is going to be for a big venue’, it’ll happen”

Since releasing their debut EP ‘End Scene’ in 2023, Essex-London quartet She’s In Parties have been quietly carving out a world of their own: one of shimmering dreamscapes, soft-focus melodies and emotionally charged reflections. Now, with their third EP ‘Are You Dreaming?’, the band are moving beyond their shoegaze roots.It’s a shift that, as Irish-born lead vocalist Katie Dillon explains, stems as much from personal upheaval as artistic growth. “I moved away from the rest of the band just over...

God Is In The TV • 15 November 2025

LIVE: Sunday (1994) / Matt-Felix - Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, 13/11/2025

For a band that only released their first single (‘Tired Boy’) in 2024, Sunday (1994) have quickly built a cult following in the UK. The band may be based in LA now, but founding member and guitarist Lee Newell hails from Slough – a blend of origins that helps them resonate on both sides of the Atlantic. Their dreamy, cinematic sound is woven together with a carefully crafted visual identity: vocalist Paige Turner is almost exclusively seen in black and white, and fans were encouraged to mirror...

LeftLion • 14 November 2025

Gig review: Bastille at Motorpoint Arena

Bastille hit the mainstream in an era when post-apocalyptic themes dominated the media landscape. Book and film series including The Hunger Games and Divergent were at the peak of popularity, and in reflection, the music that sound-tracked that period of time also mirrored these dystopian themes. Pompeii, the band’s breakthrough hit, reflected on historical events rather than an unknown, uncertain future, but it still had that ‘end of the world as we know it’ feeling that lingered following 2012...

DIY • 10 November 2025

Chiedu Oraka: “I belong here; there’s no imposter syndrome anymore”

Emerging from Hull’s underground scene, rapper Chiedu Oraka has carved out a name for himself as one of the North’s most uncompromising and inspiring voices. And with his latest EP ‘Undeniable’, he’s proving that years of graft, grit and self-belief can turn local roots into something truly global.“I feel like, at first, I used to get frustrated about not getting a look in, always feeling like if I was from a bigger city I would have got further with my music,” he reflects today. “Now, I see it...

The Notts Review • 9 November 2025

JayaHadADream completes her 2025 victory lap with headline Metronome show

JayaHadADream may have grown up in Cambridge, but she credits Nottingham as the place where her music career started. After a year of playing some of the UK’s biggest festivals, and collaborating with huge names like Capo Lee, Big Zuu and Frisco on her new mixtape ‘Happiness from Agony’, her headline show at Metronome on Friday night felt like a homecoming stop on her 2025 UK tour.Of course, her show in Cambridge likely had the same feeling, and there are still further shows to come in other cit...

The Line of Best Fit • 7 November 2025

Hirons’ “Vertigo” is a dizzying study in control and surrender

“Music has always been there for me,” says the British-American songwriter – real name Jenny Hirons. After learning piano for ten years as a child, she has turned a private habit into something intensely public. “I would play piano whenever I had access to one. I credit LA for bringing music into my life in the way it is now, with songwriting. I finally had the physical space to have my own piano.”
That sense of space became crucial. Now ten years deep into life in Los Angeles, the city offered...

DIY • 6 November 2025

She’s In Parties - Are You Dreaming?

With ‘Are You Dreaming?’, Essex-London quartet She’s In Parties deliver a lucid dream of an EP that lingers in the liminal, hazy space between reality and reverie. Building on the promise of 2023’s ‘End Scene’ and 2024’s ‘Puppet Show’, it sees the band mix shoegaze melancholy, dream-pop shimmer and introspective indie grit with effortless style. Opener ‘Fallen’ sets the scene with widescreen ambition, driven by urgent, theatrical keys that slowly fade to reveal shimmering guitars and soft-focus...